South Zone of the Coimbatore Corporation has walked away with a sizeable portion of the budgetary allocation the civic body will make in the 2015-16 financial year.
Coimbatore Mayor P. Rajkumar on Thursday presided over his first budget session and announced a number of schemes.
An analysis of his announcements, zone-wise division of schemes and allocations made for those indicates that South Zone has got schemes worth Rs. 20.84 crore. West Zone comes second with Rs. 9.90 crore, North Zone third with Rs. 8.10 crore and Central Zone fourth with Rs. 2.46 crore. East Zone comes last with Rs. 2.06 crore.
Schemes
The schemes considered for this analysis are only those that see the civic body contribute from its coffers. Schemes announced anticipating Central or State governments’ funds have been excluded.
Schemes with financial allocation that benefit the entire city have been equally divided into five as there are five zones.
But in cases where such schemes lead to creation of asset, say, like a cricket stadium, the financial allocation has been included in the zone concerned.
Contributing to the South Zone’s high allocation are a modern abattoir, vegetable market and a meat market in Ukkadam, infrastructure development works in Vellalore dump yard, etc.
South Zone Chairman M. Perumalsamy says that it is only natural that South Zone has got the highest allocation, for it has got the maximum wards that are categorised added areas – 14 out of 20 wards.
The need for development is one reason that the civic body has put more money in the Zone, he adds.
Councillors in the South Zone say that the political reason behind increased allocation is that the area comes under the assembly constituency represented by Municipal Administration Minister S.P. Velumani.
In the East Zone that has got the lowest allocation, a councillor says that the civic body should have equally concentrated in the Zone as well as there are areas that have not seen bitumen-topped roads for decades. Five of the 20 wards are from added areas and they are in Vilankurichi and Kalapatti.
Corporation sources say that East Zone will stand to gain when the civic body implements schemes with the State Government’s help like road and street light improvement programmes and that will be done in the ensuing financial year.
